The primary objective of this project is to understand the defense mechanisms of animals to toxic insecticides. The emphasis is on mammalian species. The compounds which are important from the viewpoint of environmental contamination are the primary target of this research project. For the project year we plan to concentrate on chlordane, PCBs and DDT. Chlordane is a mixture of several components such as nanochlor, cis- and trans-chlordane and heptachlor. First, metabolites formed in vivo will be collected from each component of chlordane and effects will be made to isolate individual metabolites and identify them. For PCBs the metabolic activities will be examined in the rat and fish (rainbow trout) to establish comparative metabolic differences. Certain components of PCBs in pure form will be examined as for their fates in these animals in vivo. As for DDT efforts will be made to study its effects on the rat liver, particularly the induction effect on the processes of protein systhesis in the microsome